Wireless applications are increasing in popularity, due in large part to the mobility that wireless applications provide to users. The rapid advance of wireless technologies and protocols, however, has provided new challenges for providing secure service delivery of wireless content and adaptable software architectures. Security is a particularly important issue for wireless communications, where multiple levels of vulnerabilities come into play when designing and deploying wireless applications, such as interoperability issues and device security. Software design adaptability allows new technologies and mechanisms to be incorporated into a system quickly and easily without interrupting the existing operations. In addition, the introduction of more dynamic applications and richer content to the users of wireless devices has been further inhibited by the small memory footprints, low computing capabilities and reduced and widely varied screen sizes of wireless devices.
While traditional desktop applications in the wired world can normally assume access to a full range of capabilities, including a full-featured email client and a web browser, communication services and applications designed for wireless devices are often constrained by limited resources and processing capabilities. For example, wireless applications typically assume and provide for the existence of a two-way single-mode communication channel between the wireless device and the enterprise communication server. This two-way communication channel traditionally takes the form of an audio channel established through a telephone call. Services are typically delivered by first establishing a communication channel (i.e., by setting up a telephone call), and then engaging in an interaction with the user, leading him or her through some kind of a dialog. This framework links the user directly to the application in only a single mode and does not support on-line upgrades.
The direct link single mode connection, however, is not adequate for many applications, since it imposes undesired limitations on the end user experience and the richness of the content that may be delivered. Voice-based applications for mobile devices offer ease of input, but their inherent ephemeral quality limits their use as an output medium. A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for delivery of converged services with audio, data or video content (or a combination thereof). A further need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for securely delivering such converged services to wireless device users in a wireless environment.